What is "the Wreck?"

Adrienne Rich's "Diving Into the Wreck" is clearly about the grand transformation in her life, but I'm going to go a step further and say it is about her having sexual encounters with another woman for the first time. The wreck is her "loss of virginity," per say. For example, the ladder represents the hanging temptation of what she wishes to discover. "There is a ladder. The ladder is always there hanging innocently close to the side of the schooner. We know what it is for, we who have used it. Otherwise it's a piece of maritime floss, some sundry equipment." (Rich 2627) Since poetry is subjective, it could also be taken as other personal transformations or perhaps a regular loss of virginity. "I go down. Rung after rung and still the oxygen immerses me the blue light the clear atoms of our human air. I go down. My flippers cripple me, I crawl like an insect down the ladder and there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin." (Rich 2627) The downward motion represents the actual act of intercourse. Again, the ladder appears as she is in the process of going through her transformation. As we discussed in class, she is alone in this because she has been in a heterosexual marriage for so long, and does not know where this road will take her.